College Recruiting and the Federal Government: A Partnership for Success

May 28, 2009

“Even though several federal agencies currently rank as ideal, we cannot ignore realities that all agencies face,” advised Kutsop. She specifically singled out the lower level interest in government among scientists and engineers as important because many of the tens of thousands of mission-critical occupations the government needs to fill are technical.

But, Kustop added, there is good news. 32 percent of natural scientists and 34 percent of IT majors selected at least one federal agency as ideal. Federal agencies can succeed by promoting their exciting and important opportunities in engineering, IT, and natural sciences. Beyond this, agencies can draw attention to their strengths in other driver categories: reputation, work/life balance, etc. And, as mentioned above, those students who selected federal agencies cited challenge, responsibility, dedication to a cause and building their résumé as attractive attributes of those agencies.

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